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What an incredible offer from Polaroid! Order more than $12 in copies and receive a free pack of Time-Zero film! Sadly, it expired on December 31, 1988. Clearly, I need to clean the studio more often!

Even though Polaroid is no longer in the instant film business, Fuji and Impossible are both offering some nice instant film products...

I'm searching for old, printed photographic ephemera for a current book project, if you have something that you would be interested in submitting, please email me.

Illustrations, advertisements, packaging, etc are all welcome. Anything that helps piece together a visual history of the medium... like this portable darkroom for instance

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Remember, worldwide pinhole day will soon be upon us! And, here's another fantastic pinhole camera that's been posted in the F295 forums. Canadian potter and photographer Steve Irvine has been with F295 for a long time and has created some fantastic ceramic cameras. This is one of the latest he's shared with us. Check out his work!

from Steve Irvine:
Here is a new ceramic camera, finished yesterday for a group exhibition I'll be in next month. The camera measures 35 cm tall, 35 cm wide, and 22 cm deep. It's made of high fired stoneware, glaze, 23K gold leaf, copper, and found objects. It uses a 4 x 5 inch piece of photo paper for the negative.




NOTE:
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I've been watching today's group of tintype practitioners with amazement and wonder. It seems there's a price war going on: who can offer the lowest prices for portraits!

I've found that many modern tintype studios are offering portrait sessions ...

We've covered several developers (for both paper and film) and fixer, so today I thought we might discuss the other two chemicals in development process: stop bath and hypo clear.

Stop bath is the recommended step between developer and fixer to prevent staining of film and prints and to lengthen the life of the Fixer. This information comes from another great book I picked up in my travels The Darkroom Handbook and Formulary by Morris Germain, ARPS




Many people use an acid stop like AGFA 210. It's quick, easy, and halts development almost instantly:

AGFA 210 Acid Short-Stop Bath
1.5oz. 28% Acetic Acid*
32oz water

Glacial acetic acid (99.5%) may be diluted to 28% by mixing 3 parts Glacial Acetic with 8 parts water, but there's also:

F295 ...

I recently had some time to talk with Phil Nesmith about his project Line of Sight. I've known Phil for a while and watched with curiosity and amazement as his project unfolded over the course of last summer. He spoke about his project Flow at a terrific F295 event at B&H Photo in New York City in 2011.




TP: Tell us about the inspiration behind “Line of Sight.”

PN: Most of my work starts with the introduction of historic photography with a contemporary topic such as war, environmental disasters etc. Having been a prior resident in the border lands of Arizona I have personal experience with and a continued interest in the militarization of our national boundaries. The desert along the southwestern border is a land that is vast and often fosters a feeling of isolation, a land little changed by time. In fact, much of that land is being watched moment by moment by many different people. How could I stay away from a landscape filled with powerful illusions of solitude and security? ...

We saw Gerald's great mobile darkroom online and asked him to write a few paragraphs about it for us. There are plenty of great mobile darkrooms out there, including everything from fancy trailers and vans to cardboard boxes. Gerald's use of an ambulance was so much fun we had to pass it along.



GF: I stumbled across a Craigslist ad for a used 1996 Ford E350 that had been outfitted as an ambulance. Upon seeing it I had a hunch that it could be the perfect mobile darkroom for film processing and printing and wet plate collodion field work. The engine was good and it had new tires and new batteries. I paid $2500 for it and $500 for new brakes.

The conversion to darkroom was already practically done—it already had ample shelving and storage, ...

Admin Note: We've been talking about Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day (28 April) BUT did you know that on 12 April Lomography is promoting as Film Photography Day? And, if you're going to shoot film we thought you might like to do it in stereo! Check out this great stereo DIY project from long time F295 member Evan in the UK (aka BananaLegs)!



from Evan:
At last I managed to beat the Ebay 'Birthday Paradox' and got two cheap folding cameras with the same lenses! The camera is constructed from re-cycled laminate flooring and the copper fittings are made from sheet from an old copper water cylinder. The lenses have a focal length of 105mm and produce images which are 55mm by 100mm onto a 4x5 sheet. ...

Rebecca Solnit's River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West is not just a book about Muybridge and his many contributions to the art of photography. While he (Muybridge) is the center around which the book is constructed, ...